Voter registration lists are used to assign precincts, send sample ballots, provide polling place information, identify and verify voters at polling places, and determine how resources, such as paper ballots and voting machines, are deployed on Election Day. However, these systems are plagued with errors and inefficiencies that waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections.

Voter registration in the United States largely reflects its 19th-century origins and has not kept pace with advancing technology and a mobile society. States’ systems must be brought into the 21st century to be more accurate, cost-effective, and efficient.
Research commissioned by the Pew Center on the States highlights the extent of the challenge:

Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—active voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.

More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as active voters.

Approximately 2.75 million people have active registrations in more than one state.

Meanwhile, researchers estimate at least 51 million eligible U.S. citizens are unregistered, or more than 24 percent of the eligible population.

Pew’s analysis found that not only were 51 million eligible citizens — more than 24 percent of the eligible population — unregistered to vote but that close to 2 million Americans who had died were still on the books as active voters.

It also found that nearly 2.75 million people were registered in more than one state, and that 12 million records had incorrect addresses or other errors.

ABC News

Feb 14, 2012 5:15pm24M Voter Registrations Invalid, Pew Reports

With nearly 24 million active voter registrations in the U.S. either invalid or inaccurate, eligible voters are falling through the cracks, according to new research from the Pew Center on the States.

“Eligible voters [are] not getting the information they need,” said David Becker, the director of Election Initiatives at the Pew Center. “It’s important that [voter] lists are accurate so that eligible voters can participate. It’s the gateway to our democracy.”

For its report, called ”Inaccurate, Costly and Inefficient,” Pew worked with research institute RTI International and Catalist LLC to examine voter registration lists. A lead researcher told ABC News that the numbers in the report were estimates.

While Catalist maintains a national database of U.S. voter lists, it does work for Democratic and Democrat-affliliated groups.

Pew’s analysis found that not only were 51 million eligible citizens — more than 24 percent of the eligible population — unregistered to vote but that close to 2 million Americans who had died were still on the books as active voters.

It also found that nearly 2.75 million people were registered in more than one state, and that 12 million records had incorrect addresses or other errors.

Becker attributed these numbers to the fact that people generally had misconceptions about voter registration. He said that 25 percent believed their registration updated automatically when they changed addresses, and that 50 percent didn’t know they could register at Department of Motor Vehicle sites.

“If someone’s moved, their voter registration is not up to date. Mail is going out to the wrong places [or] getting returned,” Becker said. “There are lines at the polls because someone’s name can’t be found,” he said, and voter registration inaccuracy “creates problems all the way down the entire process. It drives up costs.”

Pew found that in 2008, from the county level to the state level, it cost Oregon nearly $10 million — $4.11 per eligible voter — to manage voter rolls. In the same year, during a federal election, it cost Canada 35 cents per voter.

This year, Pew is working with eight states — Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware — to better share data on residents who have moved and died, and identify and confirm eligible voters.

Michael McDonald, an associate professor of politics at George Mason University, said the results of the Pew assessment was “no big surprise.” But he said having states talk was a step in the right direction.

“It’s the next logical step in this progression of creating a more robust way of tracking voter registration,” he said. “We’re identifying problems and correcting them.”

When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needed help rounding up superdelegates, she turned to Harold M. Ickes, the ultimate Democratic fixer, who is now working round-the-clock for her, drawing on his vast energy and decades of political connections.

But, at the same time, Mr. Ickes is also wearing another hat. He is president of Catalist, a for-profit databank that has sold its voter files to the Obama and the Clinton presidential campaigns for their get-out-the-vote efforts. With his equity stake in the firm, Mr. Ickes stands to benefit financially no matter which candidate becomes the Democratic nominee.

In creating Catalist, Mr. Ickes, who was deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, has formed a rare entity on the political scene, a for-profit limited-liability corporation that allows wealthy Democratic donors to help progressive organizations and candidates by investing in the company. And if Catalist, which has data on 230 million Americans, is successful as a business, these donors-turned-investors stand to reap financial returns from using their money to help elect Democrats.

But some campaign finance watchdogs say they wonder whether Catalist was established not so much to make money but to find a creative way to allow big-money liberal donors to influence the election without disclosing the degree of their involvement or being subjected to other rules that would govern spending by an explicitly political organization.

Catalist has raised over $11 million in venture capital, including more than $1 million from the billionaire financier George Soros, according to his aides. It also counts on such large unions as the Service Employees International Union and the A.F.L.-C.I.O., to buy its products and create revenues. And it plans to be the go-to source for voter data for a broad swath of groups often aligned with Democrats -- like the Sierra Club, Emily's List and Clean Water Action -- as they embark on ambitious get-out-the vote efforts this fall.

We are working on it., Lugar has only two principals he sticks by; 1) whatever a president asks for in way of nominations he should get, even if he nominated Hitlar. 2) Illegals first, his cronies second, constituents are in small print at the bottom of the list

Unfortunately, Dick Lugar is probably one of the best friends illegal aliens have. Anything to help them break the law, you can count on his vote.

INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, U.S. Senate Candidate for the 2012 Republican Primary on May 8th, called upon Senator Dick Lugar to move back to Indiana and establish a home after a Lugar spokesman admitted that the Senator had not been a resident of the state since 1977

. It is unclear from public statements by Lugar's campaign how the Senator's lack of a physical residence in Indiana complies with the requirement of Article 1, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which requires a U.S. Senator to be an "inhabitant" of the state he or she represents when elected. "We have been making the case since last year that Senator Lugar has become out of touch with Hoosier Republicans on issues like the increase in our massive national debt, wasteful earmark spending, and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Now, we know why. Sadly, Senator Lugar went to Washington, D.C. and left Indiana behind," stated Treasurer Mourdock... Dick Lugar, Back Home Again in Indiana? -- INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --